F. Digby Hardy

Frank Digby Hardy (5 April 1868-28 October 1930), born John Henry Gooding, was a British journalist whose help was enlisted by the British government in capturing Michael Collins during the Irish War of Independence.

Biography
Frank Digby Hardy was born John Henry Gooding in Devonport, Devon, England on 5 April 1868, and he served six weeks in prison in 1886 for check forgery. In October 1886, he joined the Royal Navy, and he deserted in 1888 after misappropriating ship funds. He failed to become a theatre actor in 1890 and instead became a petty criminal, returning to prison in 1890. He then abandoned his wife and children and changed his name in order to restart his life in Hambledon, Surrey, where he remarried and joined the British Army in 1891. In 1896, he was dismissed for embezzling money while working as a clerk at Aldershot, and he was in and out of prison during the 1890s and 1900s. From 1910 to 1917, he was again imprisoned after forging a woman's signature in a confidence trick. In August 1919, while in prison again, he petitioned John French for his release and became the editor of several religious publications in London.

Hardy later became a socialist journalist, and, in 1920, he arrived in Ireland to report on the "true conditions of British misrule" for LIFE magazine. He met with the staff of The Irish Bulletin with the goal of collaborating with them; he even asked Eithne Drury and Diarmuid McWilliams if he could interview Michael Collins. However, he was secretly in the employ of Dublin Castle spy chief Ormonde Winter, who sent him to help the British apprehend Collins. He informed the RIC officer David McLeod and constable Albert Finlay that Drury planned to write an article on Finlay's abuse of an innocent Irish girl, leading to Drury and McWilliams being arrested.